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berta wise extrapolator edh
EDH April 17, 2026

Berta, Wise Extrapolator EDH – Big Mana

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Commander Overview

Berta, Wise Extrapolator is one of the new Simic commanders from Secrets of Strixhaven, and holy moly is she cool. She’s a math-whizz frog with fractal friends who not only makes mana, but makes tokens, too.

Simic isn’t usually my color combo of choice, but I knew I had to build Berta. I usually brew in the bracket 2 or 3 space, but I felt that Berta was powerful enough to merit a bracket 4 build, so the guide rails are coming off with this one!


Simic +1/+1 Counters Bracket 4
Command Zone

Berta, Wise Extrapolator

Legendary Creature — Frog Druid
$2,735.30

Creature 22

1 Badgermole Cub $57.24
1 Birds of Paradise $15.57
1 Bristly Bill, Spine Sower $43.50
1 Devoted Druid $0.41
1 Elvish Spirit Guide $2.24
1 Endurance $3.27
1 Eternal Witness $1.82
1 Evolution Sage $2.68
1 Experiment Kraj $0.37
1 Faerie Mastermind $10.11
1 Fathom Mage $0.34
1 Forgotten Ancient $0.36
1 Formidable Speaker $8.27
1 Incubation Druid $2.27
1 Kami of Whispered Hopes $2.62
1 Ledger Shredder $7.37
1 Llanowar Elves $0.30
1 Lyla, Holographic Assistant $8.19
1 Pollywog Prodigy $6.26
1 Thrasios, Triton Hero
1 Valley Floodcaller $4.79
1 Walking Ballista $10.57

Instant 15

1 Bioshift $0.20
1 Chord of Calling $5.99
1 Crop Rotation $3.70
1 Dramatic Reversal $3.98
1 Fierce Guardianship $55.53
1 Force of Negation $47.20
1 Force of Will $69.66
1 Gift of the Viper $0.22
1 Mindbreak Trap $15.90
1 Noxious Revival $7.53
1 Search for the Frozen Esper $0.38
1 Snakeskin Veil $0.24
1 Snap $3.96
1 Swan Song $7.44
1 Worldly Tutor $27.67

Sorcery 7

1 Body of Research $3.19
1 Fabricate $9.47
1 Fangs of Kalonia $0.31
1 Farseek $0.60
1 Finale of Devastation $50.21
1 Three Visits $5.70
1 Windfall $4.67

Artifact 10

1 Agatha's Soul Cauldron $34.49
1 Altar of Dementia $18.40
1 Arcane Signet $0.40
1 Blade of the Bloodchief $2.57
1 Chrome Mox $156.07
1 Lotus Petal
1 Ozolith, the Shattered Spire $4.90
1 Sol Ring $1.20
1 Talisman of Curiosity $0.44
1 The Ozolith $72.05

Enchantment 13

1 Amphibian Downpour $1.05
1 Branching Evolution $5.75
1 Doubling Season $33.53
1 Freed from the Real $7.89
1 Hardened Scales $1.81
1 High Score $1.07
1 Intruder Alarm $3.57
1 Mystic Remora $11.71
1 Pemmin's Aura $11.28
1 Rhystic Study $68.78
1 Simic Ascendancy $0.44
1 Utopia Sprawl $1.86
1 Wild Growth $0.43

Land 32

1 Ancient Tomb $132.09
1 Barkchannel Pathway $5.09
1 Boseiju, Who Endures $53.04
1 Breeding Pool $11.13
1 City of Brass $10.05
1 Command Tower $0.32
1 Exotic Orchard $0.26
7 Forest
1 Gaea's Cradle $1,417.27
1 Gemstone Caverns $47.55
7 Island
1 Mana Confluence $31.39
1 Mystic Sanctuary $0.86
1 Oakhollow Village $0.35
1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood $0.31
1 Otawara, Soaring City $30.51
1 Talon Gates of Madara $33.90
1 Tropical Island
1 Willowrush Verge $8.54
1 Yavimaya Coast $0.31

Tokens Used 2

Bird
Fractal

EDH BRACKET

1
Exhibition
2
Core
3
Upgraded
4
Optimized
5
cEDH
Bracket 4 // Optimized

High power Commander. It's time to go wild!

  • No Restrictions (Other than the banned list)

How to Play the Deck

The goal of this deck is to find a way to make infinite mana as soon as possible, and believe me, it’s not that hard. The early game is all about playing ramp pieces, and waiting to cast Berta, preferably with protection to back it up.

We should also be using some of our tutors to find our key components. Devoted Druid and Experiment Kraj are the two primary tutor targets for creatures, since they go infinite with any counter doubling effect. We’re only on Fabricate for artifacts, and we most often want to get Blade of the Bloodchief or Walking Ballista there.

Once you’ve set up a board that produces a lot of mana, you can start doing some funny stuff with Berta’s X ability, cards like Body of Research, and other Simic aces.

Strengths of the Deck

Berta’s increment ability in the early game makes it less strenuous to cast spells, adding mana back to your pool.

The combos are clearly defined and only require 2 to 3 cards to function.

+1/+1 counters is a heavily supported archetype.

Weaknesses of the Deck

Berta is susceptible to removal.

It’s easy to make infinite mana, more difficult to do stuff with it.

The deck runs only free counterspells mostly, making it easier to be mana positive overall, which weakens your win attempts.

Combos

The combos in this deck are all based around getting infinite mana. We want to be Freed from the Real, so to speak. There are a few conventional ways to get infinite mana, but some of the methods require Berta. I’ll include a full list below, but I want to focus on the Berta-centric combos in more detail.

Prerequisites:

Infinite Mana with Berta

Combo Sequence
1
1. Activate Berta’s ability by tapping her, paying 0 for X
2
2. Create a 0/0 Fractal token, which triggers Intruder Alarm, untapping Berta
3
3. The Fractal token dies, triggering Blade of the Bloodchief, putting a +1/+1 counter on Berta and adding 1 mana of any color.
4. Repeat from step 1 for infinite mana.
×

It’s incredibly easy to use Intruder Alarm to break token decks, and this is a three-card infinite colored mana combo to showcase that.

How do you end the game from here, though? If you have Altar of Dementia you can pay 1 mana into X instead of 0 to make a 1/1 Fractal. Sacrifice it to Altar to mill an opponent, triggering the Blade and starting over from step 3.

Alternatively, you can use Faerie Mastermind to make your opponents draw their whole libraries, but this method puts you at a disadvantage, because removal exists. Walking Ballista is also an option.

Other Combos

There are a handful of other combos in the deck to draw your whole library or create infinite mana. These combos are pretty simple, so I won’t go into detail. But here’s a full list:

Combos:

Discussing Other Synergies

There are some cards that work together in interesting ways to create some net effects that aren’t infinite combos. I think these niche interactions are what separate Berta from being a good cEDH commander, and what makes her awesome as bracket 4.

Body of Research

This card is goofy. For six mana, Body of Research allows you to create a Fractal creature with as many +1/+1s on it as there are cards in your library. Obviously, by the time we have 6 mana, we should probably also have a counter doubler, so this Fractal will be even larger.

From that point, you can sacrifice it to Altar of Dementia to mill an opponent out completely. Or, if we were on Thoracle, we could do it to ourselves and win the game.

Body of Research plus Simic Ascendency assures you a win on your next upkeep as long as there are 20+ cards in your library. Even more style points for flashing Body of Research in on your opponents endstep with Valley Floodcaller.

Pemmin’s Aura and Freed from the Real

Freed from the Real and its slower cousin Pemmin's Aura both allow us to create infinite mana with Badgermole Cub and dorks that tap for blue or lands that make blue mana. The line is pretty simple, since Cub lets our earthbended land or dorks add green as well as blue, we can use the auras to make infinite green mana.

But, Freed and Pemmin’s Aura both synergize with Berta. Whenever at least 1 counter is added to her, we can activate the aura to untap her, which lets us make more Fractals.

I outlined the combo above with Intruder Alarm, but either of these auras on Berta also work. You’d need Blade of the Bloodchief and an aura attached to her, make a 0/0, add a +1/+1 and a blue mana, pay into the aura to untap her and repeat.

Conclusion

Is Berta the new Kinnan? No, I don’t think so. She is very fun because the mana ability and her ability to make tokens gives her a lot of power in the command zone. But, she’s not a 2-card combo with anything yet, and the deck relies on some janky cards to work properly.

However, if you like going fast, frogs, and big mana decks, Berta is pretty solid. You could definitely build her as a bracket 3 deck or below, but I feel she loses a lot of her potential.

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